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So I've been pretty quiet on here for awhile, and there's definitely a reason for that. I've been going through quite possibly the hardest point in my life financially.

Several months ago, I was living with two roommates, one of whom was amazing and the best friend you could possibly have, and I'll always feel like I've let him down in some ways. Our third roommate just disappeared one day, leaving me and Danzer to pay for a 3 bedroom apartment 2 ways. At the same time, work at my freelance gig slowed down, so much so that I wasn't able to make any of my 4 credit card payments. I was barely able to pay my original rent that was split 3 ways, so Danzer unfortunately had to cover for me on that, which I still owe him for. So that was the first month, already owing money to friends and credit cards.

The next month Danzer got an amazing job offer back in Colorado and had to move away. I'm hoping he's doing well, he deserves to have something good happen in his life, as much time and energy he's put into helping other people. So this just left me in the 3 bedroom until move out, with almost no money. I knew I was going to have to get another job on top of my regular freelance gig.

Let's back up a bit. This wasn't the first time I knew I was going to have to get a second job, I had been trying for several months before this. I went to an interview at one company, a hiring event, and if I didn't go to that hiring event, I'd have to wait another month for the next one. I needed the job as soon as I could, except the day of the hiring event, I had a massive migraine. Nausea, piercing headache, everything. During the interview, I could feel the nausea welling up. In the middle of the interview, I knew I had to use the restroom, cause I could feel it. The interviewer escorted me to the restroom, but it was too late. In front of the interviewer, I vomited. Probably the most embarrassing thing to happen to me in a professional environment. Then I had another interview, another job that I really needed and thought I had it in the bag. Turns out, I didn't get that job either.

So with my move out date approaching, I needed something. I didn't have the money to move in somewhere else, and I decided maybe I should spend a month or two back in Dallas with my family to build back up some funds, and I really didn't want to do that. At this point, I have 4 credit cards each 3 months late on any payments. It was around this time that I got accepted for a job at IKEA. It didn't pay much, and was only seasonal, but it was something. What it also meant, was I needed to find a way to stay in Austin.

Here was my situation, I needed to get a storage unit to store all my stuff, I needed to find a couch to surf on with a friend, and I needed to find someone to look after Jade, my cat. Each of these was a tiny struggle, but I found something, except all of them, obviously, were temporary.

Let's go back a couple months here as well. Around the time all this was happening, my car's transmission started acting up. The car has always had transmission problems, but this was worse. I avoided driving it as much as possible, but I still needed to drive it for my IKEA job. After staying with my friend Noah for several weeks, I felt like I had enough saved up to move into a new place. Except with 4 credit cards now 4 months behind on payments, my credit score was so low, no apartment complex would accept me.

And then my car died.

Turns out my alternator had died and took my battery with it. This cost my over $500. I could pay it, sure, but I really needed that money. At the same time, the person looking after my cat couldn't keep her any more, so I needed to find a new place for her. She went to three different places over the course of a week. Then I went and couch surfed with a few other friends, Greg and Katie, so I wouldn't be to big of a burden on Noah.

At this point, the only thing I could afford was student housing south of the river, extremely far away from my IKEA job, but it was all I had. Unfortunately, after fees and everything, I would only have enough money to move in, and then I'd be left with nothing for two weeks waiting on more money. The student housing took forever to send me the lease, so by the time I sent it in, it was apparently past the due date, so they then inform me, two days before moving in, that they don't have a room for me. They try to have me sublease through another student trying to move out, but it would be an additional fee.I can't do that additional fee. Nontheless, I agree to meet up with the guy to look at the apartment. It's a 4 bedroom with 3 other random roommates, and this place was... a...mess... When I say it was a mess, I mean there were a few crt televisions covered in garbage bags just sitting around the living room area. The place reeked of weed. The kitchen had old food caked on almost every surface, the lid of the trash can was greasy and sticky to the touch, and the bathroom was brown in every corner and crevice. I was physically repulsed. here's the problem, this was my last chance. I ran out of couches to surf on, Jade couldn't stay where she was for long, and I needed something to survive.

And then my car died.

This time, it was my power steering.I reached the end of my rope. I had to make a decision.

I decided that I needed to leave Austin. Not permanently,I plan to move back when I can, but for now, I'm staying with my parents in Dallas, still working my freelance editing gig. I had to let IKEA know that I couldn't put my 2 weeks notice in, as I had to leave Austin that day. My parents came down to help me get all my things, at least everything that could fit in their SUV. Just the other day, I rented a car tow and my neighbor came down with her truck so we could get my car and the rest of my things. My car is still in the driveway, still broke down.

The past few months have almost been non stop stress, not just from all the big things, but there were countless other things that happened over the course of the several months that, near the end, was causing me to have a nervous break down almost every day. And don't even get me started on the situation with the Let's Play Community. I don't think I've ever cried as much or as often as I have the past couple months.

And so, now I'm in Dallas, away from all my friends I made in Austin, who have been extremely supportive of me. I'm getting better, slowly, I just need to swallow my pride a little and keep working towards getting my debts paid off (4 credit cards 5 months late each, and all my taxes from last year, which I still haven't paid any on yet). Once I get caught up, I plan to come back to Austin. Until then, I need to not stress as much as I have been the past several months.

To everyone that helped me out, let me stay on their couch, watched my cat, gave me advice, helped me get a job, hung out on days I needed it, gave me a hug, scolded me for being stupid, sent me money, helped me carry heavy things, or supported me in any way over the past several months, I can't thank you enough. I have the best people for friends, and I feel bad that I've left you behind in Austin, but I plan to come back. Thank you, all of you.

Been struggling financially, trying to find a new place to live, trying to find a steady job, etc. But hey, still making content, even if it has been slow going the past couple weeks.Anyways, here's the videos this week!

So let's get back in the groove of posting weekly updates again, shall we. Started playing Heroes of the Storm, mostly to get the Overwatch skins, except now I'm just playing heroes and not Overwatch. That'll probably change once the anniversary event starts. Also, Lawbreakers is not a good game, imo.

Also, hey, new killer showed up in Dead by Daylight, so us at The Lone Few did a let's play in it.

We also went back in time and tried out a game mode in Gmod called Stop It Slender.

We did this last year and had a great turn out, and since then there's been a ton of new creators joining that channel, and many of us have been collaborating and helping each other out all year, all without ever meeting each other.

So this year at RTX, let's do it all again. I'm going to be speaking with the place to try and reserve some big seating area (we kinda just took over a whole floor last year) so we can all meet up, grab pizza, and actually talk to each other face to face instead of over discord/skype/etc. Everyone is welcome to come by!

So a lot of you may have noticed that I haven't been posting videos on my channel recently. Well, there's a reason for that. I've been brought over to help make content on the channel for The Lone Few. You may know them from their awesome GTA machinimations and Straight Outta RT from a while back. You may also know them from being in pretty much all my multicam videos for the past few months. With them already showing up in all my content, we figured why not move stuff over to their channel. 11,000 subscibers compared to my 188.

So does this mean I'm abandoning my channel? In a way, kinda? The vast majority of my stuff will now be over on The Lone Few, but if there's ever something that may not fit their formats, I may still decide to do it and put it on my channel, but still.

So yeah, go on over to the Lone Few's channel and hit that subscribe button!https://www.youtube.com/c/thelonefew

Now let's play catch up on videos since I haven't posted here in a hot minute.

Oh hey, featured user! Thanks! I should probably introduce myself. My name is Phoenix, I've been a part of the AH Community/Let's Play Community making videos and appearing in videos since November 2015. I also create stuff on my own YouTube channel where I make let's plays of my own. In my past, I used to direct short films and webseries of my own creation, of which I will occasionally share stories about here. I try to post once a week with all the content I've been in. I live in Austin, so if there's any Austin community members, remember that the RT Austin group has weekly meetups at Torchy's where I try to always show up to. (You may even be able to see me in the background of some early Million Dollars But episodes)

I think this may be my first time as featured user. This profile was started in 2010, but I have another profile that I had long forgotten the password of that I made in 2005, you can even mind it online with all my shitty, horrible, high school annoyances on (amon_knives). I was what the kids now call and edgelord. So yeah, it's awesome to get featured user!

So, sharing a few highlights of what I do, check them out. And even though the channel is on hiatus, go subscribe to the Let's Play Community and help us raise community interest in bringing the channel back!

This was a fun project I worked on quite a few years ago. Still one of my favorites too, since these shoots were as bare bones as you can get.

I didn't write this webseries, that was my good friend, Kenneth Trombley, who had this as his baby. He co-directed and produced this, while I acted as director/cinematographer/editor. In the second arc, we even had Skyler McIntosh, an amazing actress who has gone on to be a voice actress with Funimation, recently voicing the lead role in Izetta The Last Witch.

Most of the time, the only crew we had were the actors, myself, kenneth, and a sound person. Some days we may have had more, but for the most part, we were filming extremely simply.

We never finished season 1, in fact, we filmed the first 3 episodes, then a year and a half later filmed the next three episodes, and that's all there is. We intended to have two more three part arcs. The next one was going to see them find an underground bunker and find an insane guy killing off survivors. I was gonna go for a very "Alien" type vibe. Then the finale arc was gonna have a character very similar to King Ezekiel from Walking Dead, and then tease some things for a season 2, including answering some questions about Shepard's wife, whose memory has been haunting Shepard throughout all the episodes.

I posted one of my previous short films here awhile ago, and thought I'd share another one.

A lot of people don't know I used to do a lot of work making my own short films and webseries stuff. I since stopped, mostly because of a lack of funds. I just don't have to money to pay people, and I'm not in college any more, so I'm definitely not gonna be that guy who has people work for him for "exposure".

I previously told the story of my short film "Witchbane: Hunters", which I still hope to make into a feature film one day, or at least a graphic novel. You can see that here: http://roosterteeth.com/post/51264142

This time, I want to tell you about my medieval piece, "On the Sale of Swords".

The story is about an arrogant bard who gets arrested and is being taken as a prisoner to a noble he's insulted. He's being taken there by one of the noble's knights, a cruel man, and a hired sellsword, who only has gold on his mind.

We filmed in a paintball park in Flower Mound, TX, in a dried up creek bed. We used stunt swords and actual knight gear. The actors who played the Knight and the Sellsword were a teacher and student of an actual medieval sword fighting school for Fiori de Liberi, and actual medieval sword technique, and they used a lot of those moves in the choreography. They choreographed the fight really well, and I wish i was a better filmmaker to capture it properly.

So enjoy On the Sale of Swords.

Next time I'll show you guys a webseries that I never finished with a friend of mine, "From the Dust".

Got a few videos this week, and I'm not exactly in all of them, but they are connected.

First up, on my channel, we wrapped up Golf with Friends in the most insane way we could think of. Random shapes, low gravity, and bouncy floors. We all slowly lost our sanity.

Then I did a collaboration with my friends @KyleDoesGTA and @aclarkislost of the Lone Few. Kyle challenged me and Austin who have never played Hitman to see who could be the better hit man. We both did really poorly, and it's hilarious. So check out the video on my channel, then check out Austin's run on The Lone Few's channel:

Now, this next video, I'm not in, but i wanted people to go watch it. This is the first of a short video series game show that @ghostsol created for the Let's Play Community that unfortunately didn't get off the ground. Wish there could be more episodes.

COMMUNITY!

I haven't been in anything co-commentary-wise, but i show up playing the games in the background of a few. You should go watch everything on there, anyways, just as a general rule. :P